Lee Ho Fook is a modern Chinese restaurant that is still fairly new to the city, it’s been open for about 7 weeks. It was formerly a restaurant in Collingwood but has moved to duckboard place off Flinders lane in Melbourne. They serve Chinese food but it’s not your special fried rice, honey chicken kind of place (hehe) it’s a modern take on Chinese food and flavours. They play around with traditional flavours and come up with creative ways to express Chinese cuisine.
The dining space is classy and relaxed. They have exposed brick walls and contemporary style lighting. A really nice atmosphere.
The tea egg with avruga and dill was interesting. The outside of the egg was darkened by the tea and had a subtle tea flavour. The yolk was soft and sticky, the avruga caviar was salty and had a nice texture and it was topped with a miniature sprig of fresh dill.
The scallop was chopped into chunks aside squares of silken tofu and had a warm soy butter with crispy garlic poured over.
The raw pacific oysters came with a ginger dressing and a little bit of wasabi. Amongst the fresh oyster sea taste was that hum of heat from the ginger and wasabi.
The black fungi and aged black vinegar was simple and wonderful. It had that silky texture and rich black vinegar flavour.
The fried sweet corn looked great. They were curled rows of corn off the cob that were sprinkled with a salted fermented chilli dust.
Lee Ho Fook’s all famous ‘chinizza’ was amazing as expected. What the hell is a chinizza? A Chinese pizza duh! This Chinese spring onion pancake pizza creation was incredible. It was a fried pizza base with a generous amount of thinly sliced spring onion with torn pieces of mozzarella spread across the top. Yumness.
The crispy eggplant was delicious, they were like chips but Asian eggplant stlyle. They had a really crunchy crispy outside and were soft in the centre. They were dressed in a sticky spiced red vinegar sauce.
I love pork belly but I hadn’t had it this way before. It was cold thinly sliced pieces of pork belly (sort of like a platter of cold shaved meat) accompanied by pickled fennel, mustard and chilli oil. Perfect flavours to accompany the pork. I enjoyed this heaps.
The cabbage salad was fun with a range of textures. It had crispy deep fried bits of cabbage on top and sautéed cabbage underneath flavoured with dried Szechuan chilli and black peppercorns.
The duck was cooked to perfection. Thinly sliced and tender and pink in the middle. It had a miso and red vinegar sauce smeared around one side of the plate which complimented it well. And then it was accompanied by super thin slices of nashi with green Szechuan. The chilli nashi was insanely good. It was fresh and cool but hot with chilli at the same time. Love.
The steamed gailan (chinese broccoli) was yum, it was presented with the long stems placed along the edge of the bowl with their oyster sauce and crispy garlic swirled in the middle.
These chocolate brownies had an Asian twist. It was rich gooey crumbly brownie paired with egg custard ice-cream and topped with wispy pieces of egg floss. Yum.
The coconut mousse was light and delicate and the corn icecream was lovely and smooth. The two subtle flavours went well together.
The apple Amaretto jelly had an apple granita on top. It was bitter, sweet and sour. A light refreshing dessert.
The Jasmine tea infused custard w burnt caramel was remarkable. It was like a thick custard flan with a prominent Jasmine tea flavour with a burnt caramel sauce, which had a beautiful bitterness to it. My fave dessert.
They do two-hour session times for dinner so it’s good to make a booking. The staff were lovely and the food was delish. The menu is mainly share plates so you can order a bunch of things and share, which is great. They also have a great wine selection.
As we walked out, this painting was on the wall. It gave me happy vibes…loved it.
I heart Lee Ho Fook!
Olives x
Lee Ho Fook
Address: 11-15 Duckboard Pl, Melbourne VIC 3000
Phone: 03 9077 6261
Website: leehofook.com.au/
Trading Hours: Tue-Sat: 6pm-11pm Mon-Sun: closed
